| Music | Alan Menken |
| Lyrics | Howard Ashman |
| Book | Howard Ashman |
| Source | The Little Shop of Horrors (1960 film) |
| Premiere | Off-Off-Broadway: 8 May 1982 Off-Broadway: 27 July 1982 (2 209 performances) Direction: Howard Ashman Musical Staging: Edie Cowan |
| Adaptations | 1986 Film Adaptation |
| Revivals | West End: 1983 (debut), 2007 Broadway: 2003 New York City Center: 2015 (Encores!), 2023 Off-Broadway: 2019 |
Synopsis and Musical Numbers
Feed the plant, fear the consequences.
Like something from a B-grade science fiction film, a godlike voice prepares the audience for an evening of thrills, danger and intrigue. The lights then reveal our narrators for the evening: Crystal, Ronnette, and Chiffon, three street urchins who exemplify the singing groups of the Sixties (“Prologue: Little Shop of Horrors”).
Seymour Krelbourn has had a difficult life. Brought up by a man named Mr Mushnik, Seymour is an orphan and an outcast. Living on urban Skid Row, he works at Mushnik’s Skid Row Florist alongside a poor, battered young woman named Audrey. A combination of Fay Wray and Donna Reed, she enters the shop one morning with a black eye that her date has given her. As they wait in vain for customers to arrive, Audrey, Seymour and the other inhabitants of Skid Row share their feelings about the place they call home (“Downtown”).
At closing time, Mushnik announces his decision to close the shop, but Seymour comes up with a plan to save their jobs and the store. He shows Mushnik a strange and interesting plant he discovered, which he has named Audrey II as a token of his secret love for Audrey. When he puts this strange-looking flytrap in the window, customers flock to the store, and he tells the story of how he found Audrey II during a solar eclipse (“Da-Doo”). Impressed by this amazing new draw card for his business, Mushnik offers to take Seymour and Audrey out to dinner. But Audrey already has a date. As Seymour and Mushnik are about to embark on their own, Audrey II suddenly wilts, and Seymour is commanded to stay at the shop and nurse the plant back to health. He begs the plant to grow, accidentally pricking his finger on a rose thorn while he cleans up the shop. Audrey II starts to perk up. When Seymour realises that the plant wants his blood, he decides that he must feed it – only a little – because if he is a success, Audrey might like him a little more (“Grow for Me”).
Audrey II grows and is soon the size of a basketball. Seymour gets his first dose of fame when he gives his first radio interview, to which Mushnik, Ronnette, Chiffon, and Crystal all listen eagerly (“Ya Never Know”). Unfortunately, Audrey misses the interview because her boyfriend handcuffed her. Although she really loves Seymour, she believes her past makes her unworthy of his love. Nonetheless, she dreams of raising a family with him in a beautiful suburb far away from urban Skid Row (“Somewhere That’s Green”).
Mushnik’s Skid Row Florist finally has a little money to clean up their act (“Closed for Renovation”). By this time, Audrey II is the size of a miniature pony and twice as popular. Left alone in the shop, Audrey and Seymour come close to revealing their true feelings for each other. However, they are interrupted by the arrival of her date, the sadistic Orin Scrivello (“Dentist”). After Orin and Audrey have left on the dentist’s motorcycle, Seymour thinks about some advice that the high Orin gave him: to ditch Mushnik and go to the big time with Audrey II. Mushnik, who has overheard this, makes a plan to adopt Seymour and consequently own the plant (“Mushnik and Son”). While Mushnik goes to see his lawyer for the adoption papers, Seymour considers how his life has changed (“Sudden Changes”), but the hungry Audrey II has ideas of its own. Seymour has no more blood to give, so Audrey II, who speaks with a voice like the devil, convinces him to kill Orin and keep Audrey for himself (“Feed Me (Git It).
Seymour makes an appointment to meet Orin at his surgery. Seymour takes a gun with him, but in the end, he does not need to use it. Orin plans to enjoy his appointment with Seymour by inhaling some nitrous oxide. He puts on a special gas mask that gets stuck and he dies of suffocation (“Now (It’s Just the Gas)”). Seymour feeds Orin’s carcass to the plant, while Mushnik watches in horror from the shadows “Coda (Act I Finale)”.
Mushnik and Son Skid Row Florist is abuzz with business (“Call Back in the Morning”). Also, the strange disappearance of Orin has made Audrey a free woman. After the day’s work, Audrey starts crying, as she wonders whether her wishes to be free of Orin have caused something terrible to happen. Seymour reveals his feelings for her, and Audrey reciprocates (“Suddenly, Seymour”). Later, Mushnik tries to blackmail Seymour into signing over Audrey II to him. But the plant, now as large as a car with two giant thorny tentacles, is hungry and Seymour escapes narrowly by feeding Mushnik to the plant (“Suppertime”).
Suddenly, things start happening for Seymour. He is approached by Bernstein, a high-spending, fast-talking television producer who offers him a contract for a gardening show; the wife of the editor of Life, who wants his picture on the cover; and a slick talent agent, who wants him to sign for lecture tours. Seymour is overwhelmed at the possibilities but nervous about the outcome of the continued feeding of Audrey II (“The Meek Shall Inherit”).
One stormy night, Seymour is typing a speech, and Audrey II screams for food. Seymour decides that he cannot bear to feed the plant another person and goes to the butcher’s shop to buy some juicy cuts of meat for it. Meanwhile, Audrey, who lives across the road, cannot sleep. She decides to take a walk and hears a voice coming from the shop. When she realises that it is Audrey II, she is aghast. The plant tricks Audrey by begging her for water, but then eats her (“Sominex/Suppertime II”). Seymour comes in at the last minute to save her, but she is dying. He confesses that he fed Orin and Mushnik to the plant and that he never meant to hurt her. She forgives him and lovingly begs him to feed her to her namesake as a sacrifice for Seymour’s continued fame. As a sunset appears in the background, Seymour dramatically feeds the dead Audrey to the waiting plant (“Somewhere That’s Green (Reprise)”).
Yet another opportunist, Patrick Martin, who wants to take cuttings of the exotic creature and sell them across the country, interrupts Seymour’s sadness. When Martin has left, Seymour turns to the plant, realising that Audrey II was sent to conquer the world. He shoots the plant, tries poison, and in desperation, he picks up a machete and climbs into the plant to hack at its insides. The creature’s jaws close around Seymour, then open and toss the machete to the floor. Martin returns with the urchins, whom he has hired to take cuttings of the plant. They move downstage, as the shop screen closes, to tell of the horrible fate of the world, with entire towns being eaten by Audrey II’s offspring. The screen opens to reveal a nine-foot-tall Audrey II complete with four blood-red flowers framing the faces of Seymour, Mushnik, Audrey and Orin as they warn the audience about the pitfalls of seduction (“Finale Ultimo (Don’t Feed the Plants)”).
Purchases from Amazon: 1. Little Shop of Horrors Original Off-Broadway Cast CD. 2. Little Shop of Horrors Film Soundtrack CD. 3. Little Shop of Horrors Original Broadway Cast CD. 4. Little Shop of Horrors Karaoke CD. 5. Hey Mr Producer (with Live Excerpts from Little Shop of Horrors) CD. 6. Little Shop of Horrors Non-Musical Film DVD. 7. Little Shop of Horrors Musical Film Version DVD. 8. Little Shop of Horrors Script. 9. Little Shop of Horrors Vocal Selections (Film). 10. Alan Menken Songbook, including songs from Little Shop of Horrors.
Musical Cyberspace 